Hostilities between Spain and England.

405 tecting our Mediterranean trade and serving as an outfitting and sheltering post for our navies destined to annoy an enemy, it seems incredible, but is, unfortunately, only too true, that the government and ministry, so lavish of rewards and praise to the costly and useless services performed elsewhere, refused Sir George Rooke even the formal honour of a vote of thanks; and he was shortly afterwards displaced from his command.

A period of some thirty years of comparative tranquillity followed this event, in which our merchants and navigators employed their resources and talents in the extension of commerce and geographical knowledge. New Britain and New Ireland had been discovered and named by Dampier in 1700, and in the course of the following years, this English circumnavigator made known the existence of Easter Island, Mischievous Island, and some of the groups in the Pacific.

A brisk commerce had been meanwhile carried on in the Spanish American colonies; for although foreign merchants were forbidden to deal with the Spanish inhabitants, a right which the English merchants possessed by treaty of cutting logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, enabled them to carry on a lucrative contraband trade.

In order to prevent such doings, the Spaniards employed certain guarda-costas, or revenue cutters, to watch the coast; but, as is not unfrequently the case, when considerable authority is placed in the hands of inferiors, it was often carried to excess and tyranny, and usurped the place of justice. The British came, at last, to be regularly boarded by the captains of these vessels; their cargoes were frequently confiscated and their ships

seized, and cruelties of the most atrocious kind were often exercised upon the crews. The complaints of the sufferers at last roused the indignation of the country; and, as redress was difficult, war again ensued. George II. was then upon the throne; and it was in the year 1739 that hostilities commenced.

Admiral Vernon was sent with a squadron of six ships to the West Indies, where he took and demolished Puerto Bello; but the other attempt made by him, in conjunction with General Wentworth, on Carthagena, proved unfortunate in the extreme. A misunderstanding having unfortunately sprung up between the two commanders, there was no concert between them; and the miseries of the climate being superadded to their other disasters, no fewer than 20,000 British soldiers and seamen perished in this disastrous undertaking.

It was about this time (A.D. 1744) that Commodore Anson completed his celebrated voyage round the world, which, although producing enormous riches, namely, a million of money, acquired by the capture of the Manilla galleon from Aquapulca, and other prizes, added little to our store of previous nautical knowledge and discovery.

From this time, students of the histories of England and France meet with nothing in the annals of the two nations but the fiercest conflicts with each other for supremacy. At home and abroad, in the Channel and on the Ocean, in the East Indies and the West, on the North American shores and in the Mediterranean sea, all were alike the battle-fields of the belligerent nations; so that the humanizing arts of peace and civil progress are lost in the contemplation of feats of arms and the clangour of war. The peace, or rather the truce, of Aix

Admiral Pococke.

407

la-Chapelle in 1748, was only the temporary calm before the fresh tempest of hostilities, which proved, however, one of the most successful and glorious that had as yet been undertaken by this country. The encroachments made by the French on our back settlements in America, gave rise to the new war. Before it had expired, A.D. 1755, five hundred sail of French merchantmen, and more than eight thousand seamen, were captured and brought into England. Our successes must not, however, be looked on as of unmixed character. An expedition against Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg, failed with the loss of General Braddock, and many of his men; and Admiral Byng was shot for avoiding a battle with the French fleet, and losing Minorca through failing to relieve the garrison according to orders.

In

The war was now carried on simultaneously in Asia, Africa, and America. The French settlements were everywhere attacked and generally conquered; their squadrons defeated, and their commerce destroyed. 1758, General Amherst and Admiral Boscawen reduced Louisburg, and captured five French ships of the line. Frontignac and Fort du Quesne also fell into the hands. of the English. In the East, like success attended the British arms, the enemy's fleet being twice defeated by Admiral Pococke, although without any decisive advantage. In the following year, an attack was made upon the French islands in the West Indies; and Guadaloupe was reduced, while the military proceedings in Canada, under the renowned General Wolfe, were still more brilliant, as they resulted in the entire reduction of the French empire in North America, which became subject to Britain. On the other hand, the successes of Colonel,